Had he survived the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Tyrone “Ty” Woods wouldn’t have written a tell-all book about the experience. He hated the fact that some of his fellow Navy Seals had become authors.

He was a Seal’s Seal. He took his secrets to the grave.

That’s how friends and fellow car aficionados remembered Woods, 41, of Imperial Beach, as they gathered Sunday morning to raise money for the infant son, Kai, he left behind. The overall fundraising effort since Woods’ death has reached $450,000 so far with the hopes of reaching a million to help Kai into adulthood.

Woods, a former Navy Seal turned government contractor, was among four killed in the Sept. 11 consulate attack that has been the subject of much controversy in Washington, D.C., with Republicans accusing the Obama administration of misleading the public over what exactly happened.

While some friends expressed frustration about the aftermath, they chose to focus on the day’s fundraising event at JBA Speed Shop, a Kearny Mesa auto shop that Woods, a car lover, frequented.

Matt Grenfell, a close friend of Woods and Kai’s godfather, is spearheading the fundraising effort and created a website — stayclassy.org/tywoods — with the Seal-Navy Special Warfare Family Foundation to collect donations. He described Woods as a quiet warrior.

“He was somebody I looked up to, to gain strength from,” Grenfell said. “He was somebody everybody looked up to.”

Grenfell then described what happened to Woods on that day. Woods was about a mile away when the attack began and he rushed over to the consulate. After fighting his way inside, he helped rescue between 35 and 40 people from the building. Then the second phase of the attack started, a firefight that lasted seven hours.

“He died with a sword in his hand, just how he’d like to,” Grenfell said.

Ron Mercurio, 41, a friend and former Navy Seal, said, “Ty was a great guy. You could count on him for anything. He was definitely a guy that had a lot of integrity.”

J. Bittle, owner of JBA Speed Shop, said Sunday’s event and efforts leading up to it had raised at least $4,000 for the Woods family. He turned his monthly “Cars and Coffee” event into a fundraiser for Woods at a customer’s suggestion.

“We all had this hurt, this pain, but we didn’t have any idea what to do so we just kind of lived with it,” Bittle said. “It was a customer’s idea and I thought it was a great idea.”

Some of that hurt and pain stems from questions about what occurred in Benghazi. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice became a target of criticism from Republicans when she went on the Sunday talk shows five days after the attack and said that, from the best information she had at the time, the attack was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim video and not a premeditated attack. That assessment later proved to be incorrect and the event is now considered a planned terrorist attack.

Woods’ father, Charles, has previously denounced decisions made by U.S. officials leading up to the attack and said the White House and others in charge who didn’t send in reinforcements “are guilty of murdering my son.”

Carl Bernstein, a former Navy Seal who knew Woods for 17 years, said he’s frustrated over how it was handled.

“You like to have closure with something like that and it kind of cheapens the way they put everything on the line and give the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “And the administration, they initially blame a ridiculous excuse like a movie, a YouTube movie. So it’s really frustrating. Without getting into the political deal, let’s just say I’m very disappointed in the administration and the way they handled it.”

Besides four-month-old Kai, Woods is survived by wife, Dorothy, and two teenage sons, Tyrone Jr. and Hunter, from a previous marriage.